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Abstract
Previous research suggests that women without children are perceived negatively by others and experience adverse outcomes in social, occupational, and medical settings. This study investigated psychosocial justifications of prejudice toward childfree women using the Justification-Suppression Model of Prejudice (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003). All participants from an online Amazon Mechanical Turk sample of adults living in the United States ( N = 891; mean age 44 years, 59.1% women, 79.5% White) completed measures of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), the internal (IMS-S) and external (EMS-S) motivations to respond without sexism, and prejudice toward childfree women (i.e., perceived disadvantages of being childfree, evaluations of childfree women, and perceptions of childfree women’s warmth). Depending on their randomized condition, most participants also completed one or more justification measures of hostile sexism (HS), benevolent sexism (BS), gender-specific system justification (GSSJ), and femininity ideology. Results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that greater RWA was directly associated with greater perceived disadvantages of being childfree and coldness in childfree women. Additionally, greater IMS-S was directly associated with fewer perceived disadvantages of being childfree, favorable evaluations of childfree women, and greater perceived warmth in childfree women; and greater EMS-S was directly associated with more negative evaluations of and perceived coldness in childfree women. Greater BS and GSSJ were also associated with greater childfree disadvantages. Furthermore, endorsement of femininity ideology was directly associated with greater disadvantages, unfavorable evaluations, and perceived coldness. In mediational analyses, femininity ideology and (sometimes) BS justified (i.e., mediated/explained) relations between IMS-S/EMS-S and expressed prejudice toward childfree women. Specifically, IMS-S and EMS-S were associated with greater disadvantages, unfavorable evaluations, and perceived coldness indirectly through femininity ideology. EMS-S was also associated with greater disadvantages and unfavorable evaluations indirectly through BS. The current study makes a unique contribution to the literature on attitudes toward childfree women by not only replicating that childfree prejudice persists, but also documenting why it potentially exists. Additionally, by identifying several psychosocial constructs that may justify prejudice toward childfree women, this study provides direction for future research and possible interventions to reduce childfree prejudice and accompanying negative outcomes for women without children.
